Suburbicon Movie Review

            Matt Damon and Julianne Moore starring. George Clooney directing.  A Coen Brothers script. What’s not to like? Well according to most reviews and the effervescent Rotten Tomatoes, quite a bit.

            Thank goodness I didn’t read any of the reviews before going to the movie. The game for me with books and movies is if I can guess what’s going to happen next. The twists in Suburbicon took me by surprise, not just once, but several times.

            I liked the movie. There weren't a lot of laughs, but I left the theater smiling.

            The plot seems straightforward. Set in the 50s in a "planned" community, twin sisters, Rose and Maggie (both played by Moore), sit on the Lodge family backyard porch with Nicky (Noah Jupe), Rose’s young son. A black middle-class family, the Meyers, has moved into the house on the street behind them and their backyards converge, separated by a short, flimsy fence. Neighbors have voiced their concern over the new family. They’re worried about a rise in crime and devaluation of their homes.

            A boy, about the same age as Nicky, steps out of the Meyers’ house with a baseball glove and ball, and tosses it into the air. Nicky’s Aunt Maggie tells him to invite their new neighbor to play catch.

            Nice, huh?

            Well, don’t get too comfortable with your assumptions. The movie unwinds with what seems to be a tale of two families: the black family and the white Lodge family. But except for the boys who become friends, the two families never cross paths. As unruly crowds gather in front of the Meyers’ house, a robbery and murder occurs in the Lodge home. The perps are white, and one of them is scary mean (Glenn Fleshler). They chloroform the entire family, holding the cloth on Rose’s face for a long time. She dies, leaving a grieving husband, Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon) and Nicky.

            Aunt Maggie steps into the role of caretaker for the family, only she quickly transitions into mean Auntie, all the while speaking in her soft, amenable voice. Moore’s acting is brilliant. She comes across as compliant, even when she’s grinding up lye for a white bread sandwich. I’m not gonna tell you who the intended victim is . . . that’s one of the surprises.

            The murders in the Lodge home multiply while the police fight off the angry white mob at the Meyers home. We see evil played out on two stages: Unthinking mob violence on one and Coen Brothers inspired psychopathology on another. The black family doesn’t fight back or seek to incite confrontation. The white family tries to solve its problems with more murders.

            In the end we’re left with the innocence of children, who guilelessly reach out to each other again.

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Marshall: Showdown in the Courtroom

Marshall

Who do you call to the defense of a black chauffeur accused of raping a wealthy white woman in conservative Connecticut? The NAACP promptly sends out Thurgood Marshall.

         Yes, the Thurgood Marshall, an ambitious and dedicated young attorney, not yet the first African-American Supreme Court Justice. He’s played by Chadwick Boseman (Jackie Robinson in “42”). Boseman’s acting is good and will certainly earn him an academy award nomination. He manages to present the young Marshall as smart, ambitious, and even a bit cocky. Let’s not forget the swagger, either, which provided some heart and humor to this famous lawyer.

         The movie is a tense courtroom drama (Connecticut v. Joseph Spell) rather than a cradle to grave biopic. This is not the future man in robes but a real person who smoked and drank, loved and lost.

         Remember, this was 1940. Marshall had more than a decade of experience to earn before Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional.

         There are several twists in the story. First, in order to try the case in a state where he’s not admitted to practice law, the NAACP hires Sam Friedman (Josh Gad) an insurance attorney who has never litigated a criminal case. He doesn’t even want the case fearing that defending a black man might ruin his legal career. Marshall and Friedman face not only prejudice based on color, but Jews are not exactly allowed in the country clubs, either. The two, Boseman and Gad, make a fine combination – sparring and challenging each other, but there’s also respect. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gad is nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

         To further complicate matters the judge (James Cromwell) orders Marshall not to speak in the courtroom while allowing him to sit at the defense table. That means Marshall must be the coach, the “court whisperer.” It’s hard for both attorneys, but they’re relentless.

         What’s Twist #2? While we’re hoping things will go Marshall’s way, new evidence is introduced. Spoiler Alert! Just kidding, I’m not telling.

         A final note, the music is outstanding. Never intrusive and even inspiring. As is this story.

May in the Summer

           

                Sometimes a journey “home” is an encounter with oneself. May in the Summer (release August 22) tells the story of a young, sophisticated woman who lives in New York and whose first novel was a success. She’s engaged and travels home to visit her mother and plan her wedding. While there she must deal with the usual travails of familial discontinuity, a tale that has been told countless times. The difference here is that May’s home is in Amman Jordan. Her mother is a Palestinian who married an American. May and her sisters were raised in the U.S.

                Wait, there’s more. Her mother is a fundamentalist Christian and May’s fiancé is Muslim. Yikes! Amman is not Gaza, but you can see Palestine across the water from a Western style beach resort as you float in the Dead Sea. Oh, and there are not too many women in jogging shorts for the local men to ogle. Only one: May. These dislocations serve as much needed reminders that even though May and her sisters are pop culture savvy and are not just Westernized-they’re as American as apple pie served at a NY deli. All of which adds up to an old story told and set in a new world.

                Diversity is a word I embrace and May in the Summer displays all its nuances in an engrossing and even affectionate manner. The script is good and the acting is outstanding. May encounters more familial secrets which I won’t reveal here. It’s a new twist on an old tale well worth viewing.

DIRECTOR(S): Cherien Dabis SCREENWRITER(S): Cherien Dabis CAST: Cherien Dabis, Hiam Abbass, Alia Shawkat, Bill Pullman, Nadine Malouf, Elie Mitri, Alexander SiddigDISTRIBUTOR: Cohen Media Group 

The Female Shaman in Bless Me, Ultima

The title to the movie, Bless Me, Ultima, carries the key to unlock its magic and riches, for blessings rain down on those who seek to understand.  Isn’t that the ultimate goal of life on earth?  Antonio’s older brothers return from the war changed men.  Perhaps because his mother wants her youngest child to become a priest, Antonio’s mind is filled with questions about the nature of man, and of good and evil.  It’s post-WWII in the United States, and many Americans have these questions in their hearts. You’ll find all the elements of a coming-of-age tale in this movie: violence and kindness, expectations crushed, hope renewed, mysteries revealed, love and humor. 

And then there’s Ultima.

She’s an elderly medicine woman, a curandera, who delivered young Antonio into the world and who has now come to live with his family.  The movie doesn’t explore her past except to show that she is both revered and feared.  She shows Antonio how to see the world in a new way, and she’s fearless in her wisdom.  “If a person wants to know he will listen and see and be patient,” Ultima says.  “Knowledge comes slowly.”

This is the only movie of which I’m aware that shows a female shaman guiding a young male in his perceptions.  That alone sets it apart.  The Tao Te Ching says, "A shaman has mastered Nature; not in the sense of conquering it, but of becoming it." Her gentleness, strength and knowledge is the same as Merlin’s in Sword in the Stone or Miyagi in the Karate Kid, but we’re not in a fantasy medieval world or in California.  We’re in real post-war New Mexico.

The setting is a part of America a few of us have been fortunate enough to have visited, and where some of us (me) have been blessed to grow up.  The sweeping yellow vistas of the llano (plains) where Ultima and Antonio go to collect herbs are gorgeous.  One can almost feel the sun and smell the wind that sweeps across the river.  Ultima is one with her world and the role she plays in it, and her appreciation of nature is passed to Antonio. These are the peaceful moments, but Antonio’s young life is rife with violence.  He sees two men killed and his friend drowned.  Because of his innocence, he is a channel Ultima uses to combat true evil.  Then, she is accused of being a witch.

“You must find your own truth,” she tells Antonio.  Folk beliefs occur in all cultures and all parts of our country.  For Antonio, the battle is between staunch old-school Catholicism and the spiritual connectedness with all on earth that he learns from Ultima.  He understands that he must think for himself without any disrespect for his heritage which emphasized tradition and obedience.  He loves Ultima, and has a profound respect for her.

Based on Rudolfo Anaya's award-winning and banned novel (in Az.) of the same name.  The book was required reading for my sons in high school. Carl Franklin both directed and wrote the screenplay.  The cast, led by Miriam Colon (Ultima) and newcomer Luke Ganalon (Antonio) take us on an unforgettable journey.

Take your friends and family to see this movie.  The history, the family, the boy, and Ultima will guide you home.

Artificial Intelligence and Real Love

Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom and the play by Michael Golamco, Build, currently at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, would not at first glance appear to have anything in common, but they both struck the same notes with me:  creativity, spontaneous intelligence, innocence, love.

In Build, Kip and Will have been building video games together since college, and they’ve been successful at it.  They also love the same woman, but she’s dead.  Or, is she?  This isn’t a play with a ghost, but her spirit—her intelligence and creative joy—and her sadness, has been regenerated via artificial intelligence.  It was never clear to me if she was a robot or her essence was captured—coded, if you will—and contained within the computer.  She’s alive to Kip and Will, though, and this ensemble cast transcends the geek trope with their creative obsessions, but particularly with her zest for Life.

The two men, testy and combative, meet on the fertile ground of their imaginations and learn something about love—their love for the A.I., but also for each other.  They free themselves by freeing her.

Moonrise Kingdom also creates a fantasy world where two 12-year-old misfits fall in love and go on an adventure.  To say Suzy and Sam run off together would be to demean their intelligence and organization.  They want nothing to do with a hierarchical world where they’re considered outsiders, but they have the same innocence and joie de vivre as the A.I. in Build.  While there is a larger cast in the movie, the close-ups are of the boy and the girl where all their quirkiness and hunger for the world fills their eyes. 

In Build the three characters each change.  In Moonrise Kingdom, the children’s lives are modified, but their love isn’t, they don’t change, but the adults around them do.

Both movie and play are set pieces for looking back and confronting the past while at the same time facing the present.  Each vehicle is an attempt—eerie, funny, earnest—to bypass the ordinary through imagination.  There is no evil intelligence here.  The characters are smart and loving.  In Build, they celebrate joy and creativity with the A.I.  In Moonrise Kingdom, Sam and Suzy are innocent and smart and creative.  In the beginning and at the end, their eagerness for life is the same as the A.I.'s.